Notre Dame had a tough loss on Saturday in Cincinnati. After controlling most of the first half, the Irish could never pull away from a tough Bearcats defense. Eventually, UC’s dominance of the backboards caught up to UND, and the Irish fell, 60-58. Despite Luke Harangody growing into the Big East’s version of Tyler Hansbrough over the last two seasons, he’s seen the talent erode around him, and the team success that Notre Dame experienced during Harangody’s first two seasons is proving elusive in his final two.

As a freshman, Luke Harangody and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish won 24 games, reached the Big East Tournament semifinals and the NCAA Tournament as a No. 6 seed. As a sophomore, Harangody saw his team win 25 more games, earn a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament and win a game there.

Last season, Notre Dame was a consensus top-25 team entering the season, this despite losing Rob Kurz and replacing him with no one (I suppose it was sophomore Tyrone Nash, in theory). Notre Dame disappointed, though, finishing 8-10 in conference and 18-14 overall (before the NIT, where the Irish won three times). A seven-game losing streak in January and February ruined the season.

That team lost four members of its rotation from that NIT team, but Harangody came back for his senior season. Notre Dame was picked eighth preseason in the 16-team Big East in the preseason and had a mediocre pre-conference season. The Irish played a typically weak non-conference schedule, losing to Northwestern by 14 in its only game against a quality opponent and somehow falling by two to Loyola Marymount at home on Dec. 12.

The conference season started well for the Irish with a 3-1 record including a victory over a strong West Virginia squad on Jan. 9, but the loss to Cincinnati puts Notre Dame in a very rough spot for NCAA Tournament qualification in Harangody’s senior season.

The hidden story in the lack of success over Harangody’s last two seasons is Mike Brey’s inability to bring in talent to complement Harangody. As he has grown into one of the nation’s top offensive players, he’s gotten less and less help from his supporting cast. Much of the blame for that has to rest with Mike Brey and his poor recruiting and talent development. To that point, there is no player in Notre Dame’s rotation this season who is a freshman or sophomore.

Here are Notre Dame’s rotations during Harangody’s four seasons. Poss/100 refers to how many possessions a player accounts for per 100 team possessions:

Freshman (2006-07):

* McAlarney missed the last 20 games of the season due to suspension.

Sophomore (2007-08):

Junior (2008-09):

Senior (2009-10):

Let’s break this down a bit. You’ll notice a few things. First, the rotations have gotten shorter and shorter. In Harangody’s freshman season, 10 players played at least 10 percent of the time for Notre Dame. It’s true that McAlarney wasn’t around for most of the important games thanks to his suspension and that Peoples and Ayers were very minor parts, but Brey showed more confidence in more of his bench. The rotation was down to eight during Harangody’s sophomore and junior seasons and is down to seven this season.

The second thing you should notice is how players leave and are not replaced. The first example is Rob Kurz. His length and defense were vital to Notre Dame’s first two teams, both NCAA Tournament teams. Those two teams finished 20th and 28th in Ken Pomeroy’s ratings during Harangody’s freshman and sophomore years respectively. Notre Dame’s offense was still better than its defense in those seasons, but the defense was still respectable at 49th and 42nd in the nation, ninth and sixth in the Big East.

When Kurz left, so did the Notre Dame defense. In the last two seasons, Notre Dame’s offense has stayed strong, but the defense dropped to 85th in 2008-09 (11th in Big East) and has plummeted to 221st this season (dead last in Big East). That’s not all Kurz, but a lot of it is. He was Harangody’s partner in crime on the glass and was the only shot-blocking threat on the Irish.

Losing a player like Kurz — and like the defensively active though offensively limited Hillesland after last season — has made Notre Dame one-dimensional. Dump it to Harangody and spot up around him — and hope the shots fall, because the defense probably isn’t stopping anyone. Of course, Harangody is part of the problem not the solution when it comes to Notre Dame’s defense, but he does so much for the offense that I’d think his defensive shortcomings could be excused.

The third thing you may notice is the class standing of this year’s rotation. It’s all juniors and seniors. The only influx of talent in Harangody’s last two seasons has been transfer Ben Hansbrough. The junior has been a very important and efficient offensive player, a very good passer and shooter, but that’s been it.

Purdue transfer Scott Martin would surely have started right away if not for a knee injury in the preseason workouts. He was one of the primary scorers on Purdue’s NCAA Tournament two seasons ago and would have brought size at 6-foot-8 and some of the defensive activity that Kurz took with him. He also would have been a sophomore. Because Martin already used his red-shirt year as a transfer, Notre Dame must apply for an exemption from the NCAA so that Martin will still have three years of eligibility. Pittsburgh was denied a similar exemption for Mike Cook last year, though Cook did play in early games during his injury season, which may have affected his case.

Either way, seven of the eight members of last year’s rotation will be gone after this year, and Brey has only been able to find transfers and players little-used as underclassmen to replace them. The current juniors are finally starting to contribute, but Nash, Abromaitis and Scott are all limited players, and none brings the infusion of defense that Notre Dame needs, though Abromaitis’ contribution offensively has been significant.

As for the sophomores, without Martin there are none. Brey elected to use two scholarships on transfers while he had two then-sophomores — Scott and Abromaitis — sitting on the bench along with the eight-man rotation. He was left with one scholarship after Ty Proffitt elected to transfer to Morehead State but did not use it.

Brey was unable to find any players in the class of 2009 that could help Harangody in his senior season. He signed three players, all rated as three-star recruits by Scout.com, but none of them sees meaningful minutes this season. Tom Knight, Mike Broghammer, Jack Cooley and Joey Brooks may eventually help Notre Dame win games, but that will apparently be after Harangody has left. How much better would Notre Dame be the last two years if Brey had been able to find one good defensive center or forward in any of the last three classes? Brey put all his eggs this season into the Martin basket, and his injury means that Notre Dame could statistically one of the worst defenses of the last seven years in the Big East.

** stats and ranks through Saturday’s games.

A couple of those four players from the 2009 class better be ready to step in next, because, if not for Harangody, the Irish might be among the worst teams in the Big East, battling with teams like USF, Providence, Seton Hall and St. John’s in the tier just above DePaul and Rutgers. And there’s no guarantee UND ends up ahead of all of those teams by season’s end.

Harangody’s efficiency and volume on offense helps Notre Dame beat teams who can’t score with them and pull off the stray upset, like the one over West Virginia in which Notre Dame hung on to a 20-point lead to win by two. Once Harangody and all of the efficient possessions he provides are gone, it will be up to Hansbrough, Martin, Abromaitis and role players to replace that — and Martin will be coming off two full years of not playing at all.

As for Harangody, there is still time for Notre Dame to make a run at the NCAA Tournament in his final year. In fact, the Irish aren’t very far out of it right now. The sad part is that, if Brey could have found players like Kurz and Carter to play with Harangody this season, UND would probably be a top-20 team right now. As it is, the difficulty of bringing top players to South Bend along with the recruiting failures of Notre Dame’s coaching staff means that Harangody will finish his great career early in March and on a mediocre team.